Without breaking the 20-year limit rule, I wish to ask how come most countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East were (and some of them still are) full of civil wars as if there were no stable political or economic powers within those countries

I find it surprising most countries such as in Europe went through a lot of changed throughout history but did not mostly involve a lot of civil wars (though sometimes they involved international conflict) or the U.S., a country that was and still is known for its long jhistory of wars where the U.S. was involved, there was only one major civil war documented in the U.S.

But when it comes to Africa or the Middle East or even Asia (such as there were a few times where throughout history where China was often divided in different dynasties, apart from most of their histories often involve them by colonised by other empires, most of their histories often involved civil wars or wars against each other

Today we are doing a redux of a concept we have already discussed previously: Hegemony!

While originally formulated as a theoretical concept in the 1920s Hegemony as formulated by Antiono Gramsci and its various further developments have taken on a rather prominent role in the formulation of theories and concepts that are very relevant to historiography until this day. From Spivak's conceptualization of the subaltern to Said's work on Orientalism to postcolonialist scholarship of the 2000s, Gramsci's concept of Hegemony has been a major intellectual and theoretical force in the humanities and the field of history.

So, to gain a deeper understanding of what this concept that obviously drives fruitful debates in the field of history actually is, here is a more in-depth introduction than the one provided last time:

Hegemony or cultural hegemony as a concept was, as previously mentioned, pioneered by an Italian communist named Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci was a communist activist in Italy in the 1910s and 1920s and in 1926 the fascist Mussolini government imprisoned him because of his communist activities. During the remaining 11 years of his life, which he spent in prison, Gramsci wrote a series of notebooks in which he laid down his philosophical and theoretical considerations of society, capitalism, socialism and the revolution.

Gramsci's main concerns and the reason why many of the concepts he pioneered are such staples of later ideas, theories and frameworks were systems of power, that is, how political and social power are organized and can persist. Being a Marxist, Gramsci saw the way a society is organized socially and politically as the result of how it is organized economically. The base (meaning the economic relationships in a society) influences or even determines the superstructure (meaning ideology, politics, social relations, the role of religions etc.). As already written in the last installment, a social-economic system based on landholders, tenants, and serfs produces, according to Marxist thought, different social and political relationships as well as a different view and understanding of the world. Yet, what all social-economic systems have in common is a conflict between between different groups in their setting based on their interest and position within this social-political-economic structure. These groups are called classes and within modern capitalism, the main classes are the bourgeois, i.e. the people who own the means of production such as facilities, machinery, tools, infrastructural capital and natural capital (the things used to produce economic value), and the proletariat, i.e. the people who have nothing to offer but their labor force. Within the social-political-economic system these groups have opposed interests, which they will struggle over influence whether it is on the ballot box, in the workplace or in other venues.

Capitalism, then, is an economic-social-political system organized around the economic-social-political interests of the bourgeois. In fact, in terms of the class struggle, capitalism as a system represents the dictatorship of the bourgeois because of the entire economic, social, and political system being geared towards and designed to accommodate their interest of accumulating capital and profit (not just financial but also cultural and social to bring Bourdieu into it). Because this system rests on the exploitation of the proletariat (exploitation in the sense of their labor producing a surplus of value to which they have no access), the question poses itself of how this system can be maintained and why, like previous communist activists had expected, revolution had not already yet broken out on a global scale.

This is the essential question that Gramsci deals with in his writing and a big part to that answer is hegemony. Broadly speaking, Gramsci formulates that any system of power rests mainly on two factors: Coercion and consent. Coercion is the rather obvious one and is meant to encompass how what Gramsci calls "political society", meaning the state with its monopoly of violence, its laws, and its armed forces can use coercive force, from literal military force to the more abstract legal force to enforce the existing order. Consent, which according to Gramsci belongs to the sphere of civil society, is however the more important one. It is effectively more important that the subaltern (as opposed to the dominant) consent to their position of being subaltern and governed by the dominant class than the ability to use force against them – for any system solely build on force is eventually going to be overturned.

So, how is this achieved; how, in the words of Gramsci, is consent manufactured?

This is where ideology enters the equation. Ideology, the way Gramsci uses the term, is not just an abstract system of ideas and thoughts. On the contrary, ideology in the way Gramsci uses it has a material existence in that "they have a validity which is psychological; they according to Gramsci “organise human masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc." It has a material existence in practical activities. It provides people with rules of practical conduct and moral behavior, and is equivalent to, again in Gramsci's words, "a religion understood in the secular sense of a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct." Ideologies are therefore embodied in the social practices of individuals and in the institutions and organizations within which these social practices take place, be they trade unions, political parties, or any other organization forming part of civil society.

Ideologies represent a set of idea, practices and assumptions that holds together blocs of individuals and groups. For example, Gramsci uses how Italian and German bourgeois, nobility, and proletariat came together in an alliance, a bloc of interest, to create the Italian and German nation state as an example of the power of national ideology – the ideas and practices of them understanding themselves as Italian and German had created the consent among them that this represented a historical necessity, even when it practically stood against some of their individual and collective economic interests. National ideology functioned as the cement that bound their bloc together.

In order to maintain power, a class must build an ideological system that can act as the cement of social forces and creates the consent for the current political-social-economic system – this is the hegemony.

A class does not achieve hegemony by simply imposing its own outlook on all other classes and social groups and it can not be ready made, rather it is a process that must happen slowly and in building upon previous achievements in that direction but once achieved, it is a powerful tool. Simply for the reason that when ideology has achieved hegemony, its ideology has become common sense, meaning, in the words of Roger Simon in his introduction to Gramsci

the uncritical and largely unconscious way in which a person perceives the world; and [Gramsci] said ‘all men are philosophers’ for all men and women have some conception of the world, or world outlook. Their conscious conception of the world, their religion or ideology, may often be in contradiction with their political activity, which can be in advance of their conscious ideas. (...)

It is through common sense that the workers, trying to live their lives under capitalism, have organised their experience. Common sense is the site on which the dominant ideology is constructed, but it is also the site of resistance and challenge to this ideology. Gramsci stresses that the consent which is secured by the hegemony of the bourgeoisie is an active consent, not a passive submission. It is not imposed; rather, it is ‘negotiated’ by unequal forces in a complex process through which the subordination and the resistance of the workers are created and recreated.

Effectively, what this means is that in order to maintain power, it is necessary to build an ideological hegemony so deeply socialized within those dominated that they will perceive their own world and experiences through the views, ideas, and practices formulated by your ideology: Pursuit of profit, capitalist systems being the only ones that "make sense", capitalism being a force or progress and akin to the natural state of human relations and so forth are all these "common sense" perceptions of the world and the individuals place in it that make up the capitalist hegemony and ultimately, the most important factor of why capitalism stay in power.

That is why in Gramsci's conception, the task for Marxist theory is to be a criticism of common sense, and to enable people to develop its positive nucleus – what Gramsci called good sense – into a more coherent outlook. Because the hegemony needs active consent and constant renegotiation there is a potential of resistance in our daily lives and practices, in our collective and communal modes of living.

The "war of the trenches" as he called precedes the "war of attack", meaning the revolution. And this line of thinking is what has endeared him not just to Marxist thinkers but to historians, especially those wishing to study the ordinary people, the subaltern, those whose voices are less commonly found in the sources that survive their period. It gives us as historians a theoretical frameowrk to study how these people perceived the world around them and structured and understood their modes of living and their daily practices and how that relates to systems of power within a historical society. It can help gain deeper understanding in the subject of slave or colonial revolts and why they so often remained unsuccessful and why they were successful when they were. It can help us contextualize practices such as Afro-caribbean religions and Rastafarianism, the acts of colonial subjects in their daily practices or the way the English working class perceived themselves within the world and so much more. All by framing it within the context of systems of power and negotiating a hegemony in the form of ideology that entered and is negotiated in the "common sense".

Further reading:

• Roger Simon: Gramsci's Political Thought, 2015.

• Erci Hobsbawm: How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism, 2011.

• The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities (can be read for free with a JSTOR account)

Hi all! My partner and I run a small Etsy shop, and we've just listed a military diploma from the French interwar period. I read and speak a bit of French, so for the most part I've been able to decipher the text (which I've included). The part we're having difficulty with is the name of the signing Commanding Officer-- is the first letter in his name an S? An H? A T? Image linked below. We've done a myriad of searches with various combinations to no luck. To the military historians out there, let us know if you have any ideas, or any corrections on the translation! Image of Diploma

Translation of text // 1st Brigade of Combat Tanks 504th Regiment

Diploma of Engineering

Colonel Hoisot [?] Commanding Officer of the 504th RCC [Brigade of Combat Tanks] certifies that Chasseur [Solider, Cavalry] Fargues of the 3rd company of the 504th RCC has been awarded upon completion Diploma of Engineering

Signed in Valence the 10th of April 1935 Colonel Hoisot [?] Commanding Officer of the 504th Regiment of Combat Tanks

Inspired by this post and thinking back to some games I've played which featured huge churches/cathedrals, I came to think: were there other uses for those massive indoors (naves) that some churches had?

Usually I imagine baptizing, marriage, service and whatnot. Was it empty and unused for the rest of the day/week etc.? It seems like a huge waste of a rather vast area that is under a roof and thus usable all year.

Were they used like throne rooms since some Bishops actually and other high clergymen reigned in a pretty mundane fashion, were there markets or something inside?

I believe that not all churches had pews, so there would have been enough space for a lot of venues outisde of ceremonies.